# Wawa Cat
Wawa Cat, also known as Oh The Misery Cat, is a photo edit of Japanese cat Kotaro with his pointy ears digitally erased, turning a quiet 2021 Instagram pet post into one of the stranger feline edits of its year[1]. By early 2022, YouTubers were pairing the earless face with lyrics from Imagine Dragons and J.I.D.'s Arcane song Enemy, giving the image a second name across the platform[3].
## Origin
Wawa Cat is based on Kotaro, a real cat living in Japan with housemates Niko and Toro on the shared Instagram page @nikoandkota.toro[3]. Kotaro's owner posted the source photo of him sitting on a desk on May 5, 2021, where it collected roughly 5,200 likes over the next year[1]. The creator of the earless edit stays unidentified, though Twitter user @OwlPower669 made the earliest confirmed public posting on June 22, 2021[2]. A since-deleted tweet from the suspended account @Isnt__Jerry, captioned 'Hear no evil,' is a likely earlier source preserved in screenshots from late June 2021[8].
- **Platform:** Instagram (source photo) / Twitter (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Unknown
- **Date:** 2021
## Overview
A typical Wawa Cat edit keeps Kotaro's face intact while photoshopping over his pointed ears, leaving a smooth, slightly uncanny forehead that reads as both innocent and unsettling[1]. Fans grew a small vocabulary around the look, calling him a 'wawa' and spinning off side jokes like the 'wawall,' an architectural pun that appeared on Reddit's r/wawacat sub in October 2021[9].
Oh The Misery variants are video edits. Creators sync a zooming earless Kotaro to the lyric 'Oh the misery, everybody wants to be my enemy' from the Arcane theme by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D., often using the CapCut 3D Zoom Effect for the push-in on the cat's face[7]. Because Kotaro's expression already reads as defeated once his ears are gone, the lyric plays like an inner monologue over a sad little blob of a head.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Wawa Cat?
Wawa Cat is a photo-edit meme of a Japanese cat named Kotaro with his ears digitally erased, often paired with the lyric 'Oh the misery' from the Arcane song Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D[7].
### Where did Wawa Cat come from?
The source photo was posted on May 5, 2021, by Kotaro's owner to the Instagram page @nikoandkota.toro[1], and the earless edit began circulating on Twitter by late June 2021[2].
### What does Wawa Cat mean?
'Wawa' is a nickname for the earless version of Kotaro, and the Oh The Misery name refers to the Arcane theme-song lyric paired with the cat in 2022 videos[3].
### How do you use Wawa Cat?
Most posters erase Kotaro's ears from the original Instagram photo, then either caption the still image or sync a CapCut 3D zoom on the face to the 'Oh the misery' lyric from Enemy[7].
### Is Wawa Cat still popular?
Wawa Cat saw its peak activity in 2022 during the Oh The Misery video run on YouTube, when creators like Joe Ballin and Shotgun9009 posted the format's earliest known videos[3].
## References
1. [https://www.instagram.com/p/COeupFBpNAg/]()
2. [https://twitter.com/OwlPower669/status/1407506486016843776]()
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wawa-cat-oh-the-misery-cat]()
4. [https://twitter.com/NlGHTGUARDS/status/1409807759894188032]()
5. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CUzzsGtgKYp/]()
6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/wawacat/comments/qeik1t/wawa_biology/]()
7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxa8ShIm9yw]()
8. [https://twitter.com/keskiviikko351/status/1409926927129927680]()
9. [https://www.reddit.com/r/wawacat/comments/qeijxm/wawall/]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/wawa-cat-oh-the-misery-cat
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